


I Would Say I Love You

by TheLongDefeat



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Dating Time Lords ain't Easy, F/M, Post-Episode: s02e04 The Girl in the Fireplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:19:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14750505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLongDefeat/pseuds/TheLongDefeat
Summary: Being a 19 year old girl in love with the last of the Time Lords is a complicated business. After the events of "The Girl in the Fireplace", Rose and the Doctor must wrestle with their relationship and their future.





	I Would Say I Love You

Rose found the Doctor in the console room staring moodily at the time rotor. He was just where she had left him hours ago, when she went to show Mickey around. The Doctor did not pretend to busy himself when she entered as he usually might; he made no effort to disguise his dark feelings.

 

“You seem… sad.” The words fell from her mouth, inadequate and small in the echoing space of the room between them. 

 

The Doctor looked down and to the side, as though meaning to look at her but not quite achieving it. “Yes,” he said, and his voice was calm. “I suppose I am a bit sad.”

 

“Did she die?”

 

“Yes,” the Doctor said, in that same calm, emotionless tone. 

 

Rose felt a twisting mess of feelings within herself - a bitter jealousy, a sharp pain of empathy, a hot rush of shame. She wished the Doctor had not cared so deeply for that woman, and she wished that she did not wish that. “I’m sorry you lost her,” Rose said.

 

The Doctor was still and silent for several long seconds before muttering something beneath his breath, and laughing softly. He straightened up from where he’d been leaning against the console, and turned to face her. In the low light of the ship’s nighttime hours the Doctor looked somber and strange, very alien, very old. “Thank you, Rose,” he said with a cool formality. “And thank you for waiting for me. That couldn’t have been easy for you.”

 

He was looking at her with his beautiful dark eyes, a warm sincerity in them that she could not face. Rose feared meeting his eye and seeing his incredible mercy there; seeing the pity of understanding for her small human heart. His rejection she could bear, but not his regret, not his compassion. 

 

No. No, this was wrong. 

 

All at once Rose felt a surge of strength, a calm determination take over her. This was the Doctor - the world-saving legend, the last of the Time Lords - and this was her best friend. This was  _ her  _ companion,  _ her  _ love,  _ her  _ Doctor. She did not fear him. 

 

Rose lifted her chin, looking at him with careful courage. “You know I love you, don’t you?”

 

Whatever the Doctor had been expecting her to say, clearly that was not it. He went very still, only his eyes moving as they darted across her face. He seemed to struggle for a moment on the verge of speech before he clenched his jaw and settled back against the console. “Yes,” he said.

 

“You know I’ll always wait for you.”

 

The Doctor closed his eyes. She could see a muscle in his jaw working rhythmically, his cheeks dimpling as his mouth thinned into a frown. 

 

“You know you hurt me.”

 

The Doctor expelled a long, quiet breath.

 

“But I don’t think you would’ve have done that thoughtlessly. I don’t think that’s what you wanted to do.”

 

He opened his eyes slowly, and Rose saw his fingers clenching and relaxing and clenching again where they gripped the railing. There was something in his face she couldn’t quite decipher, some old and familiar sense of suffering. Rose was struck by the unhappy thought that this might not be the first time the Doctor had had this conversation with a companion. 

 

“Rose,” he began, his voice soft and serious, “you cannot fathom how truly  _ old  _ I am.” His gaze cut to her face, distant, assessing. “Rose, I…” He gave a single sharp shake of his head. “I can hear your pulse as I fall asleep at night. Do you understand me? In the TARDIS, I can hear it. I fall asleep to the sound of your heartbeat.”

 

Rose stared, crossing her arms over herself, not understanding.

 

“I can’t…” the Doctor waved his hand helplessly between them, looking at her with wide imploring eyes. “I can’t give you nine hundred years, Rose. I can’t. You can’t have every piece of me. I have to have something - something left when… Reinette saw someone different, someone long ago. And someday - someday when you are - when you are  _ gone  _ \- somebody will have future parts of me. Newer parts of me. But the part of me that you have is now. Is  _ me _ -me. Is leather, and pin stripes. Do you understand?”

 

“Doctor,” said Rose, her voice half-gasp as she struggled on a sob, “I want to know more of you. I want to know  _ all  _ of you. I would love  _ all _ of it.”

 

“I know,” he said, stepping forward, cupping her face in his hands. Rose couldn’t bear to look into his eyes, couldn’t bear their beauty or their pain. The Doctor, comprehending perfectly, folded her into his arms. “I know you want that. And I - I wish - if there was anyone I would surrender my soul to, it would be you. If there was anyone I could make future, past and present, it would be you. But I can’t. Rose, I can’t.” He said the words like a chant, like a poem of old; his voice cracked and rasped on them like hands grasping at dry rocks. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

 

Rose wept openly against his shoulder, her tears streaking hot trails down his neck. “I want you to love me like I love you, Doctor.”

 

“I would destroy the universe.” He was hoarse now, hardly whispering. “I am the Last, Rose. The Last. You are - you make me - you can’t know my past, Rose. You can’t even know my name.” He pressed a cool kiss to her cheek, just beneath her eye. He pressed a kiss to her trembling mouth. “You can’t know it all, Rose. I would give you everything. I wouldn’t mean to, but I would. I already destroyed a planet, Rose. I _murdered,_ Rose, I murdered them all \- I can’t - I can’t.” 

 

Rose drew in a long breath; held it. She leaned back from the wiry bracket of the Doctor’s arms, looked up briefly at his torn up anguished face, kissed him on each cheek. “I understand, Doctor,” she said, and she meant it.

 

The Doctor’s eyes closed, slowly, slowly. “I would say I love you,” he said to her, “but love is not enough for what you are to me.”

 

She stepped back from him. He slumped against the railing, catching his breath. “I know, Doctor,” she said, and she meant that too. 

 

FIN.


End file.
